@Lyte - Player Behavior, Matchmaking, and Life as a Scientist

However, the data suggests that the number of lobbies that end with instant locking and the players are frustrated or pissed off about it is in the minority. Given the data, removing the lock would only arbitrarily increase the duration of Champion Select for many lobbies which I believe is too high of a cost to solve a problem that only a minority of lobbies have.

What about changing "lock" into "ready"? That way you don't make it last longer in the positive case, but you do allow more room to correct hasty action if the need arises.

Personalized tips is an interesting idea, but making sure it's personalized, meaningful, and relevant each time is actually decently complex.

It could probably be as simple as "The enemy teams used XX% more wards" or "had 3 more dragons"

Giving specific details about opponents would be more complex and I don't think it would always be useful. "The enemy Fizz has won 44% of his Fizz games" could have the opposite effect even.

The simplest one I can think of. If the game ends when the winners have baron (Or maybe had within the last minute or 2) it could just say "Exalted with Baron Nashor gives XXXX gold worth of statistics." This wouldn't change much from game to game (Unless you added up the exact amount based on levels, but I don't think that level of detail is needed) but would be a good reminder, or at least something to blame it on. It's easy to tell yourself "With those stats, they were stronger than us. That's why we lost."
Some other more generic ones.
"Dragon is worth nearly 1000 gold for your team! Be sure to keep an eye on it." (If the enemy team had more dragons)
"Wards can prevent you from getting caught, but also help you catch your opponents!" (If the enemy team dropped more wards)
"Minions can be worth a surprising amount of gold! Sometimes it is better to kill them than your opponents." (Outfarmed)

Now, eventually these might get a bit annoying, especially to more veteran players who can probably pinpoint exactly why they lost, so they should be able to be disabled. I mainly thought they would be targeted at newer/lower players to both give them tips, and possibly help explain why they lost. For more toxic players it would give them something to blame the loss on besides their teammates (Or maybe just give them a specific reason to take it out on their teammates...but...I hope people aren't really that bad)

I barely see toxic players anymore, but I'm glad it's an ongoing process. I'd love to see some rewards for non-toxic players as well, such as (free recolor) skins that are only usable if you haven't been in the tribunal in 3 months or something.

If you actually do manage to leave this, may I ask, is anything being done about Leavers atm? Or is this outside your area of expertise?

Statistically the enemy team has a slightly higher chance of getting a leaver than your own...except that means squat because winning a 5v4 is still a boring unsatisfying waste of time.

And to incorporate leavers into your theory. Leavers cause just as much toxicity as an a-hole, as not only is their lack of presence frustrating, but even when they are on the enemy's side, they are still a negative experience. Try to imagine a person plagued by leavers on his own team for as series of game, and he finally wins the next game...solely because of a leaver on the enemy's team.

Can you imagine how invalidating it feels that you just won only because you got an insane advantage over the enemy? Not to mention, that's 20+ minutes off of playing an actual fun 5v5 game.

One of the only things I've been looking for is an option to unanimously vote kick somebody out of the pre game lobby and return to the queue without it counting as a dodge on your own account. It gets pretty frustrating when the 2nd to last or very last pick don't get what they want, so they instantly go walk into the mid turret 20 times a game, or pick someone like kat jungle and do nothing the whole game.

What is your stance on 3rd party sites like Lolking as a tool being used for Harassment? Is there a foreseeable "Opt-Out" button that will allow players to hide their stats from these "predators" using it only to berate them? Are there any positives behavior-wise to showing players stats?

Heimerdinge's rework info was promised over 2 months ago. Why give a specific time table if you can't come within two months it?
If you set a deadline hit it, otherwise don't set one and go with your SOON TM line. People don't like being lied to. A little professionalism goes a long way.

Riot has said time and time again that they don't want blacklists in this game. They don't want us removing people from the matchmaking pool like that. So, I'm wondering about a possible alternative: a Warning List.

Basically, it's a list (like the Ignore list) of people that you've marked for it. If you get into a game with someone on this list, they get a warning symbol next to their name. It's a way to mark that you did not enjoy your experience playing with this person, and it gives you warning so you can dodge if you feel the need to. It doesn't prohibit the match from being made, so there's no issue there. It wouldn't give free dodges or anything like that. It would just be information that this is a player you've ran into before, and you do not want to do so again for some reason (toxic behavior, et cetera).

I've tried assembling such a list in a text document on my computer in the past (and just checking it manually), but the sheer time and energy it took to create and reference was too much.

The big issue with this feature is that you almost never run into the same player again after playing with them. The odds of getting matched with that player again are very, VERY small. So, what real benefit is there in making it? Doesn't seem like much. However, I think that there is potential in this for helping anger issues between games. If one player's actions caused you a lot of frustration, you might carry some of that over to the next game. It happens in LoL, and everyone is familiar with it to some degree. Reporting someone for their behavior helps alleviate this somewhat, and helps alert the Tribunal to them. But, what would the psychological effect be of adding someone to your Warning List? I would be inclined to believe that a similar alleviation of frustration could be gotten by saying "At least I'll know to dodge next time I see this guy on my team." Could that value be worth the cost of the feature, even if the times the feature actually showed such a pairing was minimal?

When I was assembling a list for my own personal use, there was something calming about recording the Summoner name, and knowing that I would be able to recognize it in the future and prevent a similar game.

Do you think there is any potential merit in this idea? I don't have the resources to test it out, obviously, so I'm operating on conjecture and personal experience.

You wouldn't happen to have an opening for a recent Human Factors Psychology graduate with a specialty in UX design would you?

Tbh the games industry isn't a place I originally thought to be a source of employment, but the work you and the rest of the riot player behavior team are doing is showing just how important that kind of thing can be.

1. Do players who play with a certain skin get reported less. Some people may say skin doesn't matter in player behavior, but I get the feeling it might have minuscule effects.

2. Do players who play very unpopular/underpowered champions get reported less? I would suspect so since I wouldn't expect them to win really badly but rather just want to play their favorite champion.

If you actually do manage to leave this, may I ask, is anything being done about Leavers atm? Or is this outside your area of expertise?

Statistically the enemy team has a slightly higher chance of getting a leaver than your own...except that means squat because winning a 5v4 is still a boring unsatisfying waste of time.

And to incorporate leavers into your theory. Leavers cause just as much toxicity as an a-hole, as not only is their lack of presence frustrating, but even when they are on the enemy's side, they are still a negative experience. Try to imagine a person plagued by leavers on his own team for as series of game, and he finally wins the next game...solely because of a leaver on the enemy's team.

Can you imagine how invalidating it feels that you just won only because you got an insane advantage over the enemy? Not to mention, that's 20+ minutes off of playing an actual fun 5v5 game.

LeaverBuster does a decent job of punishing Leavers who leave intentionally; however, we're always going to have a small % of games have a Leaver that either disconnects because of ISP issues, weather issues, or some other unintentional cause.